


probably hopeless

by Aquaphobe



Series: pros and cons [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Crush, Boys Being Boys, M/M, Rewrite, Short One Shot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 02:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17572913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquaphobe/pseuds/Aquaphobe
Summary: This is bad. No, scratch that – this isdisastrous.Stan's not crushing, or idolising, or even justobsessingover his super best friend.He swallows down the urge to shout, or maybe swing his fist at the mirror just to rid it of his stupid, gawping reflection. Knows right in this moment that he's got to get out of here, before he does something colossally stupid.





	probably hopeless

**Author's Note:**

> ashfghgk just a quick, venty rewrite of an old 2014 fic, since i was getting stuck on the next chapter of _unresolved_.
> 
> this is the first in a series of random South Park one-shots of various odd pairings and unconnected stories. ;))

A brush of elbows, of knees, of hands, of bare feet tangled together on the couch.

Kyle's cheeks are the first to turn red. And then it spreads to his ears, rushes down his neck beneath the collar of his tee. But he still just grins and shrugs, shoving Stan's shoulder and pretending like he doesn't notice.

Like he doesn't notice the tension around them.  _Between_  them.

Stan thinks it's slowly but surely driving him mad.

It's all he can do not to reach out across the gap and wrap his arms around his best friend's neck, to reel him in and kiss him until they're both breathless - until it's impossible to remember anything outside of  _them_. Them, together.

Each night as he falls asleep, he imagines Kyle's bony limbs pressed up against him - curled around his back, head weighing on his shoulder, arms looped around his ribs. He dreams that Kyle is all around him, the scent of crisp apple shampoo and the taste of salt on his skin. He overwhelms Stan's subconscious mind, smothering his every sense, pushing out any thought that isn't about  _him_. And Stan loves it, loves picturing how he'd lean into him, how he'd sink his hands into wild, wiry auburn hair. He imagines looking into hazel eyes and watching long lashes flutter against pale cheeks as he catches Kyle's lips. Imagines bare skin brushing - hands bracing a sharp jawline, fingers digging into hipbones, legs sliding together.

And he wakes up in hot flushes and cold sweats, his face burning and his mouth dry.

During classes and at dinner in the evenings when they're apart, he zones out. Creates a world in which they link their hands together with practiced ease, walk through the corridors with arms around waists, steal kisses by their lockers. He dreams up a future of dating on a college campus, away from the madness that is South Park. A relationship based on trust and shared beliefs. Holidays with both their families, trips to the grocery store, nights out on the town.

Every day, Kyle tastes like something new. Like cherry cola, like lemon meringue, like chocolate fudge sundae – whatever he fancies in the moment. An endless cycle of flavors. An endless list of possibilities.

Right here and now, Stan imagines he tastes like salted popcorn, or maybe the orange juice they're drinking.

Focusing on the movie Kyle chose - some thriller flick with a lot of shouting and poorly edited in sounds effects - is close to impossible. Stan's knee is jumping with nervous energy. His eyes keep flickering over to his best friend's face, and there's this all consuming urge to touch, to hold. It's addictive - it's nerve wracking - being this close, and knowing that reaching out is off limits. (Stanley Marsh isn't good at accepting what is and isn't an okay line to cross, but he's always tried his best when it comes to Kyle.)

Distracted as he is by Kyle's proximity, it's no wonder he gets caught staring like a fucking idiot twenty minutes in. Sharp hazel eyes flicker over, locking onto him with unflinching focus. Stan's breath stutters out of him as his attention is returned with all the force of a sledgehammer. They sit there, stuck in some kind of impromptu staring contest, Stan's heart flip-flopping all the way down into his stomach and back, and Kyle's brows slowly rise. Neither of them could ever be considered subtle, but Stan thinks that the silence between them - this unwillingness to acknowledge whatever the fuck it is that's been building up for the last God knows how many years - is pretty impressive. In moments like these, when Kyle confronts him without even saying a word, he's suddenly made aware of just how much his best friend is letting him get away with.

(Kyle  _knows_  something is up - knows  _Stan_  knows Kyle knows something is up. Still doesn't press for answers.)

He just stares, expression level and ears pink, and Stan's whole brain recoils in embarrassment and  _want_.

(Fucking Hell.)

Coward that he is, he looks away first.

He can feel the heat rising to his cheeks but it's impossible to stop. He has to get away and calm down, before his stomach forces its way up and out of his mouth.

"I'll be right back," he says, his voice slightly hoarse.

"Alright dude," says Kyle in a sedate tone that is totally, blatantly out of character for him. It does something weird to Stan's breathing.

The darker haired boy can feel eyes on his back as he stands up and walks stiffly away. His steps are jerky, and he has to remind himself to slow down. To watch where he's going. To not bolt up the stairs three at a time.

' _Don't be suspicious_ ,' he repeats in his head like a mantra, ' _Don't be suspicious_.'

(That's pretty difficult though, when certain parts of his anatomy are rising up to try and say hello.)

When he gets into the bathroom, he locks the door behind him with clammy hands and stares into the mirror over the sink. His breathing's uneven, lifting his shoulders and making his nostrils flare unattractively. His hair is flat all over from his woolly hat, except for one stupid tuft at the front, where he ran his fingers through it earlier (a nervous habit) and his skin's gone this blotchy sort of pink that says he's either been outside in the sun for too long, or he's maybe constipated. Dark blue eyes stare back at him, wide and shocked, pupils blown.

Crap, he's so transparent.

Bracing himself against the basin, he tears his eyes away from the mirror and concentrates instead on calming himself down. Long, deep breaths and thoughts about how great it'd be if he maybe  _didn't_ hurl all over the newly redecorated Broflovski family bathroom. His lips are a little chapped where he's been chewing them so much recently, and each warm breath whistles out past them.

"Come on, Marsh," he says out loud once he thinks he's got his gag reflex under control. Looks up at his reflection and glares. "Get a hold of yourself. This isn't the time to start getting weird."

And it's true, because he's already at his limit with... whatever this is they're dancing around. This unspoken, all-consuming drive to break through the invisible barriers between them. It's not just all the physical stuff that's getting to him, either.

No, that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's hidden under the surface is the real problem.

The not-so-pleasant truth is that Stan Marsh, enthusiastic fan of boobs and bubble butts for as long as he can remember, is horny for his best friend. Yep, that's right, straight boy Stan is maybe not so straight after all. He's always had a thing for the fiery, bossy types (take his on-and-off relationship with Wendy as a case in point), so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that he's got a raging boner for the fieriest, bossiest guy in town. It did kind of shock him to realise that he  _liked_  it when Kyle started ranting about whatever he considered a hot-button issue in the moment, or that he found Kyle droning on about deadlines and study groups  _compelling_ , but the worst of it all was that until the realisation struck him that he was crushing on Kyle... he'd never once thought of another boy that way. He'd never looked at anyone else with a dick and found them even slightly appealing - Hell, it wasn't until the beginning Junior year that this whole mess had even  _begun_. Sixteen years of life perfectly heterosexual, and then one day he'd rolled out of bed, gone to school, and caught himself drooling over his best friend's flat, bony ass. Where was the logic in that?

A year and a half later, and Stan's still just as confused. ( _And_  he still also catches himself drooling, but that's neither here nor there.)

Honestly, Stan doesn't know what it is about Kyle that killed every last one of his straight-boy instincts, but he  _does_  know what he likes about his friend. His smart mouth; his inability to keep himself and his opinions in check; his strict moral code. He loves his jewfro and his long, dorky nose. His gangly legs and his spider-fingered hands. The fact he irons his shirts on weekends and wears reading glasses at home, where he won't have to listen to snarky comments. Mostly, Stan loves his eyes. Kyle looks at everything in life like he knows just how to conquer it. There's no problem too big for him, nothing so unattainable that he'd ever lose that spark.

(If he hadn't felt like a fucking special-case earlier when he'd gotten caught watching his best friend rather than the movie, he probably could've lost himself in those eyes for hours...)

Blinking back to himself, he realizes that he's just been staring into the mirror, smiling like a goof. He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

Really, this is hopeless. He isn't getting anywhere.

"You've gotta stop being so pathetic," he mutters. Twists the cold tap on and leans further over the sink to splash a few handfuls of the fresh, icy water into his face.

The feeling's a brief, stinging shock. He'd had the vague hope that it'd help snap him out of his Kyle-induced daze, but his heart's still doing weird flips. The lurching of his stomach, though calmer now, still puts 'butterflies' to shame. It's like he's riding a goddamn rollercoaster.

Every time he blinks, he sees Kyle burnt into the back of his eyelids.

(He's just so fucking perfect it  _hurts_.)

It's right around this point that Stan stops. All brain functions slow to a jolty, clanking halt. For a long moment, he stares down at his tan hands, dark against the edge of the shining white basin, and he flounders.

Shit. Okay—

Wait.

This... he knows this feeling. Knows it like they always say that you will in the movies, like everything will shift just so in a single moment, and suddenly—

Click into place in a whole new way. Reality, changed forever.

(Clarity.)

And suddenly Stan understands for the first time just how dire it's gotten.

This is bad.

No, scratch that – this is  _disastrous_.

He's not just crushing, or idolising, or even  _obsessing_ over his super best friend.

Stan swallows down the urge to shout, or maybe swing his fist at the mirror just to rid it of his stupid, gawping face. Knows right in this moment that he's got to get out of here, before he does something colossally stupid.

Pushing away from the basin with far more force than necessary, he scrubs his face dry on the sleeve of his hooded jacket, foregoing the hand towel and swivel on his heels to face the door.

One last, bracing gulp of air and his flips the lock, tugs the handle, and steps out onto the empty landing. The rollercoaster ride that is his stomach gurgles out a threat as he bounds down the stairs, and he covers his mouth with his palm as he reflexively dry-heaves. Pauses at the bottom just long enough that he doesn't chuck up his guts all down his own front.

The split second the wave of nausea passes, Stan throws himself down at his shoes, discarded earlier on the doormat.

He's on his ass and tugging on his second boot by the time that the noise of the TV in the living room comes to a sudden stop. Stan wriggles his foot harder at the soft rustle of fabric and the pad of footsteps drawing near. Great. Kyle's finally gotten up to check what's going on.

As the taller boy rounds the corner into the hall, Stan makes a concerted effort not to meet his eyes, because he knows he'll buckle under the weight of Kyle's furrowed brows and pursed lips. Stan'll either spit the whole weirdass confession out with a nice surge of vomit, or he'll somehow choke it all back and he'll end up sat down on the couch again, wanting nothing more than to just drown his sorrows in a barrel of Jack Daniels. Either way, the outcome will be miserable. He'd rather be left to freak out over this particular revelation on his  _own_ , thanks. Call him slow, but he needs time to process it.

"Dude," says Kyle, voice as slow and sharp as a surgical blade. It cuts right through Stan's internal panic. "What's going on?"

Wetting his dry lips as his eyes dart around, he pauses in his struggles with his boot. Tries to think of some plausible excuse. ' _I think I'm in love with you, dude – as in, totally gay for you. Like, super-duper-triple-dog gay. Like look-into-your-eyes-and-forget-what-the-fuck-I'm-meant-to-be-doing gay. Oh, and I really want to bone you, too_ ,' is what he doesn't say.

Instead, he chokes out something that barely resembles words at all. Clears his throat.

"Oh, I... I just realised that I, err..." He stammers. Flounders. Attempts to make up for the fact that he's a terrible liar by stumbling to his feet and tugging his cell out of his pocket. Stan waves around the dark, unresponsive screen in Kyle's direction like it's evidence. "My— dad just phoned and said that I have to be home, because I, uhm— y'see, I forgot that I was supposed to be helping him with this thing—"

"Bullshit," he says, blunt enough that Stan's teeth clack shut. He winces as his best friend pushes his cellphone back at him and continues. "You've been acting off with me for ages now, and I'm sick of it. You're treating me like I have some kind of disease or something, Stan. What the fuck's wrong with you?"

And so Stan's standing there with his phone dangling at his side and one boot not properly on his foot, and he feels like a douchebag. He's still not meeting Kyle's eyes, but that doesn't mean he can't hear the hurt in his voice - the low hitch in his words like they're trying to stick in his throat.

Stan's first instinct is to step forward and reassure him because they're super best friends, and they've been through hell together over the years. There's nothing that he wouldn't do for the redheaded boy—

Which is just about the only reason he hasn't thrown open the front door and legged it down the street with only one shoe on, his favorite hat abandoned somewhere in the Broflovski living room, and his dignity clutched to him by whatever tatters remain.

"No, dude," he says instead, shoving his phone back in his hoodie pocket and clearing his throat. He runs his fingers through his hair, and wishes he was running them through Kyle's, instead - pulls his hand down and balls it into his side. Shuffles between his wonky feet. "It's nothing. I've really just got to go. I've got... y'know, stuff."

There's a moment of silence, and then a high, grating noise of frustration.

"Stuff? For fuck sake, Stan, is this about  _Wendy_  again? Because if you're still hung up on her after last year, then I'm sure she'll be more than happy to take you back again." Kyle sounds so much like he wants to smack him as he says that, that the dark haired boy just can't resist looking up.

Their eyes meet, dark blue and pale hazel, and Stan is once again drawing a blank. Kyle's freckled cheeks are pale, save for two high points of color, and he's practically baring his teeth.

(Hot. He's so damn hot when he's angry, it's ridiculous. Stan wants to bite and lick and kiss until they're both bruised.)

Then, his best friend's words finally register in his fucked up head.

Choking on a sudden, hysterical burst of laughter, Stan's face cracks into a painfully wide grin. How hilariously wrong Kyle's assumption is, considering  _Stan_  was the one to break it off with  _Wendy_  right around the time he started having wet dreams about all the different ways and places he could fuck his very male best friend. And that was  _before_  he'd started fantasizing about them getting an apartment and adopting a dog together. You know, all the really wholesome things a good person thought about doing with someone who wasn't their longterm girlfriend. Stan is admittedly a douchebag, but he isn't a  _total_  dick. He wouldn't  _do_  that to Wendy. The fact the whole situation's been so skewed, so confused in translation is just— it's  _unreal_.

"Oh man." He gasps the words out around his wheezing chuckles, eyes stinging with the force of it. "You really couldn't be more wrong."

Even while he's rubbing the tears from his eyes and struggling to catch his breath, he watches Kyle's face do something interesting, like the other boy can't settle on what he's meant to be feeling. His lips purse and then pout, his eyes narrow into a squint, and the his brows crease as he crosses his arms. He looks like he's trying very hard not to tap his foot or reach out and throttle him.

"Then it  _is_  something I've done?" Kyle says, moments after the last of Stan's laughter has eased off. His voice is loud in the empty house, echoing off of the walls. The freckles on his nose are scrunched up close together, and his chin is quivering.

Shit.

"No, dude," the shorter boy says, the last of his twisted amusement at the misunderstanding dying a very sudden death. His stomach performs a sickening, plummeting lurch and ends up roughly in the vicinity of his shins.

Great, he thinks. Now I've gone and upset him. Can't stop himself from stepping forwards.

(Stan wants to smooth away the furrow in his brow.)

"You haven't done anything. I'm just— really fucked up right now," he says, voice low. "I'm working through some... stuff that's come up." He gives what he knows is more of a grimace than a smile, and a jolty, one-shouldered shrug. "It all kinda came out of left field, man. I know I'm being a pretty shitty friend at the moment." Glances up at Kyle.

For his part, the redhead's gone back to squinting at him. (But that's okay, because that means that his confusion is overriding the hurt.) "Why? What's this all about, Stan? And don't you  _dare_  tell me it's doesn't concern me." He cuts Stan off when he opens his mouth. "Because  _clearly_ , it does."

Pressing his lips together, Stan tries to calm down the racing of his heart and the churning of his stomach with steady breaths through his nose. He's being backed into a metaphorical corner, and he keeps finding his exits cut off. (Reconsiders not just making a run for it, because  _seriously_.)

He takes an aborted shift towards the door, feet catching on loose shoelaces, and—

This time  _Kyle's_  the one to step forwards. He blocks the front door in one loping movement, and he's barely a foot away. A waft of sharp, apple shampoo catches Stan like a punch to the gut. He has to crane his neck back to track Kyle's expression - to track the fact that his mouth is forming words that Stan can't hear past the drumming of his heart in his ears.

"So are you going to tell me? Or do I have to just keep guessing?"

All there is in that moment, is warmth radiating through his tall, gangly friend's white t-shirt, and hazel eyes boring into him. He's overwhelmed by freckled arms and a sharp, clean-shaven jawline - bony shoulders and soft looking lips. The flash of teeth and tongue as Kyle leans in closer and speaks louder.

"Stan? Are you even fucking listening to me?"

The darker haired boy's tongue darts out of his mouth and wets his lips, and he's sure it's just his imagination running away with him again, but Kyle— it looks for a second like he tracks the movement. Stan's heart beats so loudly that it's impossible Kyle hasn't heard it yet.

For a long moment they hover there, on the precipice of something monumental - something life altering. Stan sees the way that Kyle's countenance shifts: the softening of his eyes, the way he breathes roughly through his mouth, the way he sways forwards...

But then the moment slips away from them, and the openness in his best friend's expression shutters.

Kyle's pulling back, shaking himself out of it. Letting Stan have the space he was so desperate to keep between them only seconds ago as he falls back a step. Problem is, every inch of extra space between them feels wrong. It feels  _cruel_ , like he'd almost been given the best thing in the world, only to have it ripped away from him at the last minute. And he's so  _sick_  of not knowing, so sick of not wanting to step over some invisible line he doesn't even remember being established anymore.

He wants Kyle. He wants in such a fierce way that it  _hurts_.

Before he can think on what he's doing, he's reclaiming the lost space, stumbling forwards on boots he never put on properly, toe-to-toe with his best friend.

Cupping a long face in warm, trembling hands, Stan watches as the redhead's eyes go wide—

And then he's dragging him down. Scrunching his eyes closed, he meets him halfway, crushing their mouths together.  _Kissing_  him.

Noses bump, and his lips are dry and still. The jaw beneath his palm is tense, muscles flexing. Stan holds the chaste kiss for a long, heart-stopping moment.

(And suddenly, the situation hits Stan like a ton of bricks.)

Kyle's not responding.

Frantic, he tilts his head and slips his fingers up into tight, wiry curls. He parts his lips slightly, huffs a hot, warm breath, grazes Kyle's lower lip with his tongue. Please, he thinks. Please, give me something - give me  _anything_. He nudges closer to his friend, tugs on auburn curls, presses a softer kiss to the side of the frozen boy's mouth.

(No good. Any moment now, Kyle will come to his sense and shove him away. He'll have ruined  _everything_  between them for something his friend doesn't even  _want_.)

A sound like a sob tears its way out of his throat and his eyes, still screwed shut,  _burn_.

And just like that, his friend jerks back to life. A  _whoosh_ of breath, a hand grabbing at his collar, and Kyle softens. He presses back against Stan, changes the angle of his head and returns the latest kiss with equal fervor.

Hands rise up and curl into the front of his jacket, and Stan's knees threaten to go weak with the rush of  _oh God, holy shit, he's kissing back, he's kissing_ -

It's over almost as soon as it starts though, because the grip on his collar shoves him roughly away.

Stan's back smacks into the wall with a dull  _thud_. All of the air rushes out of him. His shoulder throbs.

Lips wet and fingers grasping at air, Stan blinks up into Kyle's face and struggles to come to terms with the last ten seconds of his existence.

"What... what the fuck was that?" Kyle's voice is barely a whisper, but the high, brittle quality snaps Stan back to reality in a split second.

Tongue growing heavy in his mouth, the darker-haired boy looks desperately into Kyle's face for some sign of reciprocation, for some sign of a smile, or acceptance. But there's nothing there. Just pink cheeks and gritted teeth.

Opening his mouth a few times, all Stan can do for a few moments is gape like a landed fish. When the words finally come, they're lumbering and slow. Spoken around the lump in his throat and the building burn in the back of my eyes. "A... kiss?"

(I knew it, he thinks. Of  _course_  he doesn't want me. Why am I such a fucking idiot?)

It's hard not to just give in to the urge to cry like a damn baby as the boy he loves stares down at him, his expression blank and his hands fisted into his hooded jacket. Finally Stan can't bring himself to look in hard hazel eyes any longer - he averts his attention off to one side. He can't do a single thing about the hitch in the back of his throat, or the way his face crumples into an ugly grimace to stave off the encroaching tears.

Reaching down, he wraps his around Kyle's thin wrists and tries to tug them away. All his strength has left him. "Sorry," he says, and the apology tastes bitter. "Kyle, I'm—  _sorry_."

Only, Kyle doesn't let go. His hands remain where they are, anchoring Stan against the wall.

A snort of laughter. "You  _should_  be." The words are so soft they might have gone unheard, were it not for the fact that Kyle's head is tilted down towards him—

Startled, Stan looks up through blurring eyes.

There's a weird, crooked smile on Kyle's face. The pink of his cheeks has crept over his ears and all the way down his neck, beneath the collar of his tee.

"You call  _that_  a kiss? Dude, you're way out of practice."

And then, before Stan has the chance to feel hurt or indignation or even nausea, there's another mouth pressing into his.

His very last thought, before he forgets to think entirely for a solid five minutes, is that Kyle tastes sharp and sweet, like orange juice they'd been drinking earlier.

It's fucking perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh, although this series will be more of a break from the _un-titled_ -verse for me, i have every intention to try my hand at writing many new and interesting ships. that means crackships, rarepairs and OT3's galore!
> 
>  
> 
> **although i won't promise anything, please feel free to make pairing requests and/or prompts!**


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